SUBJECT TO TAXES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 245, 16 October 1935, Page 9

SUBJECT TO TAXES.

PIHA SURF BOAT. SECRETARY AND MINISTER. PLEA FOR REMISSION. Owing to the fact that the Government has refused to remit the charges of sales tax and Customs duties, the Piha Surf Life-saving Club is unable to put into commission the surf boat it bought recently from Sydney. Correspondence has passed between the sccrotary, Mr. C. R. Holt, and tho Minister of Customs, Mr. Coates, the upshot of which has been a refusal by the Minister to .allow the boat in free. In a last letter to tho Minister, to which a reply is at present awaited, Mr. Holt pointed out that "we risk our lives to savo thoso of others and therefore consider that wo should at least not bo called upon to pay taxes for rendering a service of this nature."

Mr. Holt explained that sales tax and Customs duty amounted to £10. After paying that amount the club would not have enough money to pay for the building of a boat shed out at Piha. "The club is thus 110 better off than it was last season," Mr. Holt added, "as tho boat is still in the city and must remain here indefinitely."

In his letter to the Customs Department last month Mr. Ilolt explained tho circumstances of the purchase of the boat. It had been decided to buy the boat outside New Zealand as the building of a suitable craft within tho Dominion would have cost some £120. Tho need of such a boat had been impressed 011 tho club since 1934, and only last February the club was unable to rescue a girl who had been carried beyond tho breakers at Karekare, even though 700 yards of line had been used. The girl was in the water for four hours and but for the timely arrival of a seaplane for which tho club had sent she would have been drowned. "Had we had a boat," said Mr. Holt, "she would liavo been picked up in half an hour."

This showed that a boat was an essential part of the club's life-saving equipment, and it was in tho hope that it, would be declared life-saving gear that Mr. Holt had approached the Minister. The Minister refused, and a second letter was sent yesterday pointing out that tho boat was as much a part of life-saving gear as wero lines and belts, which were admitted duty free.

"Letters ( have been received from those whose lives the club has saved," added Mr. Holt, "and they have stated how groat a benefit a boat would be to anyone who might be unfortunate to be placed in circumstances similar to thoso from which the writers of the letters were rescued."